Scholar of Israel to co-​​direct Middle East Center at Northeastern

Israel and Middle East expert Dov Waxman will join North­eastern Uni­ver­sity as pro­fessor of polit­ical sci­ence, inter­na­tional affairs, and Israel studies and co-​​director of the Middle East Center.

Waxman, a renowned scholar of Israeli pol­i­tics and for­eign policy, Arab-​​Israeli rela­tions, and Middle East pol­i­tics, will bring his exper­tise to North­eastern in the fall as a vis­iting scholar of polit­ical sci­ence and will begin his role as co-​​director of the Middle East Center. His tenured fac­ulty appoint­ment will take effect in 2014.

“Pro­fessor Waxman’s depth of knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence make him a leading voice in the field of Middle East pol­i­tics,” said Col­lege of Social Sci­ences and Human­i­ties Interim Dean Uta Poiger. “He fos­ters robust aca­d­emic and public dis­course on com­pelling ques­tions and will be an invalu­able resource for stu­dents across disciplines.”

Waxman comes to North­eastern with more than 10 years of teaching expe­ri­ence and a strong schol­arly pub­li­ca­tion record. In the main­stream media, he has been a cham­pion of intel­lec­tual freedom and the open exchange of ideas.

“I am very excited to be joining the fac­ulty at North­eastern,” Waxman said. “Being a member of the Polit­ical Sci­ence Depart­ment and the Inter­na­tional Affairs and Jewish Studies pro­grams is really a per­fect fit for me in terms of my research and teaching. I also par­tic­u­larly hope to develop Israel Studies at North­eastern and to increase the pro­file and activ­i­ties of the Middle East Center.”

For the past nine years, Waxman has been in the Depart­ment of Polit­ical Sci­ence at Baruch Col­lege in New York and at the CUNY Grad­uate Center. Prior to that appoint­ment, he taught in the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment at Bow­doin College.

Waxman has con­ducted research as a vis­iting fellow or scholar at a number of uni­ver­si­ties, including the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv Uni­ver­sity; the Middle East Tech­nical Uni­ver­sity in Ankara, Turkey; the Begin-​​Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-​​Ilan Uni­ver­sity; the Avraham Harman Insti­tute for Con­tem­po­rary Jewry at the Hebrew Uni­ver­sity; and most recently at St. John’s Col­lege and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Oxford University.

“Pro­fessor Waxman’s per­spec­tives will enrich our aca­d­emic com­mu­nity,” said Stephen W. Director, provost and senior vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­emic affairs. “He has a rich and mul­ti­fac­eted per­spec­tive, informed by deep his­tor­ical under­standing, on the com­pli­cated issues facing the Middle East today and in the future.”

Waxman is the author of The Pur­suit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Iden­tity: Defending /​ Defining the Nation (Pal­grave Macmillan, 2006) and the co-​​author of Israel’s Pales­tinians: The Con­flict Within (Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 2011). He fre­quently com­ments on Israeli-​​Palestinian rela­tions and Middle East affairs in the press, including The Wash­ington Quar­terly, Ha’aretz, The Jewish Quar­terly, The Jerusalem Post, For­eign Policy Mag­a­zine, and The Daily Beast.

At North­eastern, Waxman will teach under­grad­uate and grad­uate courses on Israeli pol­i­tics and society, the Arab-​​Israeli Con­flict, Middle East pol­i­tics, and inter­na­tional rela­tions theory.